SEC's College Football Playoff Hopes All Riding on Alabama, Which Is Just Fine

Two teams? Three teams? All four teams?

SEC schools littered the top four of the College Football Playoff rankings during the season.

When the dust settled, though, only one remains alive as we head into championship weekend.

Goliath.

Alabama earned a trip to Atlanta before even taking the field at Bryant-Denny Stadium, as No. 4 Mississippi State fell on the road to Ole Miss in the Egg Bowl. When it took the field in the Iron Bowl against Auburn, it made a statement.

A bold one.

Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images

This is an Alabama team that, for the most part, hadn't been winning pretty this year. Sure, there was the 59-0 win against Texas A&M, but the one-point victory over 6-6 Arkansas, an overtime win over an LSU team whose offense was more myth than reality and a 10-point victory over West Virginia that saw the Tide secondary get torched by quarterback Clint Trickett and wide receiver Kevin White.

We knew they could win sloppy and win blowouts, but could the Crimson Tide win a shootout?

The 55-44 win over Auburn in the Iron Bowl answered that question with an emphatic "yes."

On the brink of being benched following three interceptions, quarterback Blake Sims responded in the second half, throwing for 312 yards and four touchdowns to lead the Tide out of the abyss and into the Georgia Dome with enough momentum to cover Stone Mountain.

Helping lead that charge was wide receiver Amari Cooper, who finished the day with 224 receiving yards and three touchdowns in an epic Iron Bowl performance for the ages.

With Oregon surging, it appears the Crimson Tide have done enough to fend off the Ducks in the race for the No. 1 seed, as Stewart Mandel of FoxSports.com notes:

Alabama is the SEC's only shot to win the College Football Playoff, but that's just fine.

This is a team that can do it all. 

Brynn Anderson/Associated Press

Can in get into and win an old-fashioned slugfest that's played inside of a phone booth? Yep, it did it in Fayetteville. Can it win on the road in clutch moments? Yep, it did that in Baton Rouge. Can it dominate? It's done that consistently throughout the season. Can it open things up when the moment is right? It did that Saturday night.

Alabama is the most complete team in college football, and it has veterans on the roster like Cooper, running back T.J. Yeldon and safety Landon Collins who have already been on—and succeeded on—the big stage.

It wasn't always pretty in Tuscaloosa this year. In fact, at times, it was sloppy. 

That's ok. 

Alabama has learned on the fly, is hot at the right time and, if it beats Missouri on Saturday afternoon, will enter the postseason as the unquestioned favorite to win the national title.

The SEC is riding a 900-pound gorilla into the College Football Playoff, and that gorilla can sprint if it needs to.

I'm sure the SEC office in Birmingham will take quality over quantity every day of the week.

Butch Dill/Associated Press

Barrett Sallee is the lead SEC college football writer and video analyst for Bleacher Report as well as a co-host of the CFB Hangover on Bleacher Report Radio (Sundays, 9-11 a.m. ET) on Sirius 93, XM 208.

Quotes were obtained firsthand unless otherwise noted. All stats are courtesy of cfbstats.com, and all recruiting information is courtesy of 247Sports. Follow Barrett on Twitter @BarrettSallee.